Rooting for my niece Lisa at the 2013 NYC Marathon

It’s marathon day in New York City, the biggest display of group joy I’ve ever witnessed. People are just plain happy, and fully inspired to support. I confess, I come to tears year after year seeing the stream of runners tear or trickle by, drenched, bedraggled, determined. The streets of the city are lined with the millions who are, for the most part, strangers to the runners—except those rooting for people they know—pouring out their hearts in support of this monumental, nearly super-human endeavor. We all want them all to win.

I lived for a few years on 1st Avenue and 83rd Street in Manhattan, in a second-floor apartment that overlooked the avenue—prime marathon-watching real estate. Friends would come over. We’d hang out my window, cheering and clapping and awestruck. Late in the day, a loudening wave of cheers and applause would surge up the avenue. This signaled the coming of a particular group of participants: those in wheelchairs, on crutches, or just plain old. Neighbors across the street knew the cue. Stereo speakers carefully wedged, they blasted the Rocky theme out their windows to rejoice in these bold runners and boost them onward. I get chills every time I remember it.

This anonymous-yet-intimate love and avid, palpable support got me thinking more generally about support and its power, and, equally, the power of its absence. True support can be transformative, magical even. It’s a tangible communiqué saying, “You’re worth it.” Or, “I believe in you.” Or “I love you.” When support is withheld or never really present, it hovers out of reach like sweet fruit high in a tree, or a hero in a book, or a beautiful land that’s always halfway ‘round the world.

“You’re on your own.” Support’s evil twin. It’s obviously possible and positive to support yourself and be on your own side, and maybe in the end that’s what we all do, even when we’re successful at recruiting others to our team. Still, there’s nothing like someone just wanting to help you out when you need it. And those who weren’t raised with an abundance of that kind of support behold it like a precious gem that shines and startles when it shows up along their path.

Grand attempts to surmount odds, climb mountains real and symbolic may more easily inspire support. But we can’t always see someone else’s mountain. So, to all you runners, walkers, crawlers, climbers, dreamers, and yes, even couch potatoes on the edge, here’s wishing you support in your private marathon and hoping you find the uplift you need to the next level of whatever you’re going for. It’s a simple equation, a basic element of design: without the right support in place, we all fall down.